Box Office: Angels & Demons & Romulans

For a franchise that gets no respect in critical circles, it’s amazing how well Ron Howard and Tom Hanks’ Dan Brown movies have done in theaters. The first one, “The Da Vinci Code” broke the bank when it opened with a $77 million opening weekend, and went on to dominate the global markets with $540 million haul. The sequel, “Angels & Demons” continues the tradition, albeit to a lesser degree. The second movie based on Dan Brown’s book of the same name earned a respectable $48 million in its debut, down from the first movie, but still good enough to take first place at the weekend box office.

The Tom Hanks-Ron Howard film just barely beat out J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek”, which continues its strong showing (no doubt thanks to continued heavy ad rotation on TV), taking in another very impressive $43 million in its second week, giving the sci-fi reboot a two-week total of $147 million. It doesn’t look like “Star Trek” is going to slow down anytime soon, either, so can the announcement of a sequel or two be far behind? Methinks not.

As for former #1 “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, the comic book movie took the third spot with another $14.8 million, giving it a three-week total of just over $151 million in domestic grosses. The film was budgeted at $150 million, not including PR costs, so it still has a ways to go to turn a profit. At this point, it’s look like Wolverine’s momentum is slowing down, especially with next week’s “Terminator Salvation” hitting theaters.

Meanwhile, the week’s counter-programming “Management”, a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn, failed to do much damage, landing at #16 in limited release.